Mise-en-scene blog post

Our goals for the activity was to truly make our character come to life. We wanted to make it feel like our peers actually knew our character personally and how she was and what her personality was like. We tried to get into the headspace of how we thought how character would think. After that, we started to picture what she would look like and what her interests were. Then we got into the tiny details like what her bedroom looked like, etc. We also wanted to make out station an enjoyable experience for our peers. For example, through her playlist and tactile objects. Morgan goes to a University as an Environmental science major. She enjoys going to rallies and participating on campus. Her friends like to think of her as very passionate, driven, and social! Morgan loves putting together her protests and enjoys the little things like reading and taking walks. In order to create our character, we had to truly envision what she would look like. We pictured her as pale with long blonde straight hair and green eyes. For her style, we imagined her with glasses and a bit of a preppy style, but she still is always repping for her passion which is the environment. For our tactile objects to help bring her to life, we included glasses, a book, and a protest sign. We all thought these items summed her up perfectly. Some things we created to illustrate our character were like her dorm room, her Instagram page, and even a mood board.

We had setup a laptop with different tabs of all the elements we had carefully put together to truly make our character come to life. We had our peers first open up the Spotify playlist tab, and had them listen to our character's playlist as they got to know her. We thought this would put them in her headspace and make them feel like they really knew her. We had also setup the tactile objects I had previously mentioned so they could get a firsthand experience. Than we put together the descriptions of her so they could get to know her even better.

For our character analysis, we went a little bit with a stereotype. We knew that our character would be heavily involved with school, especially since a huge part of her personality is being an environmental science major, so we made her look a little nerdy by giving her glasses and dressing her in collared shirts and such. I think overall my group did an excellent job at executing our station and making this character come to life. Something I think we could’ve improved was our time management. I think we could’ve work more efficiently to get the end result we did. But overall I think the project turned out just the way we wanted to!

Genre Research Blog Activity

 Everything there is to know about the best sub-genre there is: Romantic Comedy

    The sub-genre of romantic comedy is a very niche part of the film industry that has been shown lots of love, and has provided lots of money to box offices. Certain streaming services like Hallmark or Netflix thrive off a sub-genre like romantic comedy because they are known for putting out good quality movies of this specific genre.

    The typical target audience has to do with why this sub-genre is so huge. The main target audience are particularly females. The age range aims to a mostly younger audience, but can still have a wide variety. A specific range in age would be around 13 to 40 years old. A smaller target are people who love the bigger genre of comedy, and even couples.     

   The real deeper meaning to why these movies do so well are the aspects of genre conventions. To be more specific, the content aspect of these films.What is seen in almost every film that is a romcom are a leading female and male. The film usually expands or takes the audience on that journey of how the two leads met or fell in love. There are also different tropes that characters could be in like enemies to lovers, or childhood best friends or even fake dating. A perfect example of the fake dating idea take place in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Andie and Benjamin fake date so Andie can write a section in a magazine that ties into the concept of loosing a guy in 10 days, so the film takes you along to watch their story develop even though the characters obviously can’t see that far into what their relationship ends up being. When it comes to enemies to lovers, the two characters can have an opposing feeling towards the other but the whole point is that they end up seeing a connection between them. In 10 Things I Hate About You, the entire concept of the film is developed around how different the two leading characters are. There is a relationship already to built to truly emphasize how unlike it is for the two characters to fall in love. In the picture below, having certain camera shots like this perfectly emulate their dynamic, two opposing forces.

    Production techniques is another important genre conventions. This includes how techniques like soft lighting, montages, parallel editing, etc., all come in to create a certain affect. An interesting technique to cast light on his montage. Montage is an heavily used tactic in romantic comedies. In 13 Going on 30, the montage is used to show the development of Matt and Jenna. It beautifully captures the reconnection and spark of feelings that were always there. Below is a captured picture from the moment, the love is just beaming off the screen. Each technique plays a valuable role in putting together a beautiful creation overall. The soundtrack of a film also plays a huge role in conveying feelings because it gives a clear insight to what the character is thinking, why they are thunking that way, what they are feeling, etc. A very iconic example of this is utilized in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before when the song “Lovers” by Anna of the North, play when there is huge relationship shift between the two leading characters, Lara Jean and Peter. It perfectly timestamps when the characters notice something different in the other.

    Institutional conventions are another aspect of a film. It includes things like narrative image which often markets the two leads in front, usually with romantic body language and sometimes may a pastel color palette. The idea of marketing conventions are huge because it is was you are doing to get people to watch your movie. A huge strategy used for this is social media. A perfect example of this had to do with the movie Anyone But You. In all honesty, when this movie was first an idea, it was trashed on harshly. Not many thought it would do well, they thought it didn’t look good, but with the use of social media that quickly turned right around. When the team of this movie created a social media account, fans quickly got engaged and tuned in. The stars of the movie, Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney, were also accused of offscreen chemistry. This accusation alone, caused so much buzz around the movie and made everyone interested. With the help of trailers, ads, posters, and more, this movie is now well worth over $100 Million dollars. Romantic comedies already do very well with engagement since they are so popular, but the convention of marketing just takes it to that next level.

    Notting Hill is a film about William Thacker (Hugh Grant) and Anna Scott (Julia Roberts). It follows William who is a bookstore owner in London whose normal life is suddenly taken by storm when he meets the beautiful and famous actress Anna Scott. Their romance slowly blossoms overtime as an awkward regular guy and world-famous celebrity fall in love. Their relationship doesn’t come all that easy though as the media and much more create obstacles throughout their relationship. Even though not entirely realistic, the movie captures everyone’s one hope to meeting their celebrity crush, so this story really beautifully captures the reality of what that would look like. In the main poster for the movie, you see William walking past a huge poster of Anna. This is a perfect capture of their dynamic, it portrays what the movie encapsulates. There are lots of lighting techniques incorporated throughout the film as well. William has a bit of a more earthy color scheme with blues and browns and greens, while Anna is more sleek and fabulous with silvers and whites. When the two share a romantic moment, the lightning often softens to emulate what they are experiencing in that moment.

    Clueless is a movie about a girl named Cher (Alicia Silverstone) and Josh (Paul Rudd) who is her stepbrother that moves in with her. Cher often focuses on trying to play matchmaker for her friends, but slowly realizes that she may start developing a little crush on Josh. Ultimately, Cher and Josh fall in love. The overall lesson for this movie is about self discovery. Cher is so busy focusing on everything that’s going on around her, but ultimately has the self check because of Josh. He helps her realize how misguided she has been and how that affected her life. A convention that is heavily tied into this movie is the idea that opposites attract. Cher is the bubbly popular girl while Josh is the nerdier more grounded guy. By having this dynamic and building tension, it helps create a more passionate ending to their relationship. Narration is also heavily incorporated throughout this movie. Cher voices over very often throughout this movie, this helps give the audience a firsthand of Cher’s through to and through the mind of a teenage girl. It makes the viewers feel like they are experiencing this journey with her.

Blog posting - Sound

• Basic summary of what you learned during the sound lesson and assigned videos

During this project, I learned how important sound can be mainly for the purpose of emotion. Without sound, I feel as if it can be really difficult to set in the viewers minds what had just been portrayed on screen, and to make them truly feel that. But, I also learned that sound can be worked around, which I had not expected.

When starting these projects, I thought it would be nearly impossible to tell a story without sound. And while it was very very difficult, it was achievable. If you film and edit correctly, you can accurately convey a thought or story even without sound. I also learned that it's very difficult to find accurate sounds for what is being shown on screen. I realized midway through Sound Project #2, that a lot of the actions didn't have sound, and this really made me wonder how it would translate for the final video. Even for some sounds you would expect to be easy to convey, it was very difficult, that is where Foley came into play. I used some of the same concepts for some sounds but also some very unexpected sounds to make a sound be more realistic on screen.

• Short summary of directions for both sound projects.

Sound Project: In this project, we were told to brainstorm a scene that would be 1-2 minutes long that would be very telling without anything actually being shown, just complete sound! Then we created a detailed outline of our approved idea with primary and secondary sounds that would be used throughout our project. When it got to actual recording, we were told to use a minimum of 4 sounds that were our own Foley. We went either at school or at home and recorded ourselves recording our Foley sounds. Then, we put together our sounds into ClipChamp along with pre-recorded sound effects that we downloaded to help develop or story. We put everything together to really create a story/scene and made sure it sounded like something that was actually happening, not just a bunch of sounds.

Our approach to completing this project was to mainly balance out the use of Foley and the use of sound effects, to truly get an idea of what it's like to do something like this. We wanted to make sure everything was fluid, that it wasn't choppy or that an audio wasn't super delayed after another, we wanted to make sure everything seemed like it was happening in real time and that it sounded very true to the ear.

During brainstorming, me and my partner came up with a few ideas, but eventually landed on the scene of a tour guide through the rainforest. We made sure to have a climax so we could have a bit more to work with, our climax was that a huge animal had crashed the tour. We then went through what our primary and secondary sounds would be. This was really difficulty because it was hard to differentiate the two. We really had to think hard as to what would realistically be happening sound wise in that situation. You really have to think hard about the sounds that wouldn't first come to mind. This outline we created helped organize the sounds because it put into perspective what were going to be the main things being heard, and than the little nit-picky sounds that had to be incorporated that would tie the entire scene together.

I think overall, we really did well on overlaying sounds to make the scenes flow altogether. I think we also had a great idea and concept, that was executed pretty well. Things I think we could improve on for next time would be timing. There was one part I noticed where there was just a huge space almost of just unimportant sounds so I definitely think that can be fixed for next time. I also think just finding more detailed sounds to really elevate the story would be helpful for next time.

Link: LittmanDuke_soundscape_per2.m4a 

Sound Project #2: In this project, we were told to review our OWF project, and ask ourselves questions we hadn't previously asked or payed attention to before. Then we created another outline, like the original Sound Project, and a soundscape to further help tell the story of our word. Individually, me and my partner uploaded our same OWF project to ClipChamp, and added in that necessary audio that we originally didn't film with. This helped to further tell the story we initially tried to create, but now with sound.

My approach for this project was to really focus on those sounds that you don't really pay attention to. I used quite a bit of Foley to achieve this along with the help of those sound effects. I wanted to catch those little detailed sounds, like if someone tapped my shoulder how that would sound like etc. I then incorporated music which I have yet to try. I really liked this technique because I think it added a whole different feel to the project.

During brainstorming, we just kept asking ourself these same questions. "What sounds would normally be present in the context of our film? Which sounds would occur at the same time?How should the sounds be layered (levels, timing, etc.)? What sounds would be present, but normally ignored? Do we need to add any sounds to develop a specific tone?" Then, we deeply analyzed and walked through how that situation would sound if we really went through it, and that helped a lot. This helped organize our sounds because when editing, I could just look at my outline, and see what I would need to add or incorporate to give my project that realistic feel.

I think what I could improve on for next time is utilizing more sounds. I feel like my project felt a little plain, and I could've had more fun of using little niche sounds to make the story feel alive. I do think even though it was a little plain, I did a good job at making it feel realistic.

Link: OWFSound_Littman.mp4